Season eight of The Walking Dead on AMC is one week away from the season finale of ALL OUT WAR. Yet for some reason, the series decided to take the foot off the gas with the second to last episode ‘Worth.’
Rick, Eugene, Simon, Dwight, and Negan all get face time in the episode. The Simon story arc came to an epic conclusion, and Negan busted out a plot twist at the end, but the ‘Worth’ just fell flat. Instead of building up tonight’s episode to explode in the season finale, there were conversations and with more new loose ends than answers.
There wasn’t even a cool walker scene in the episode. The creativity of the special effects crew is fantastic, but we didn’t get a face pealing moment tonight. When Aaron was sliding around in the mud I thought that was going to be the moment were decomposed walker was going to fall apart on Aaron.
There were multiple points in the episode for Jeffrey Dean Morgan to put on an acting clinic, but the actor kept it mellow. It seemed like this was not the lead up to the season finale but more of a midseason episode. There is no way the season finale next week can close all the loose ends in an hour episode unless the writers use broad strokes, and that will be disappointing.
With the death of Carl, it is becoming more and more apparent that ALL OUT WAR will have an anti-climactic ending instead of crazy off the wall action packed episode. Also, if ALL OUT WAR doesn’t end this season and carries over into the ninth season no one will care.
I look at a television series like a DJ; their job is to keep you dancing and get you excited to party. A DJ’s job is to build energy. The same goes for The Walking Dead; the show is supposed to create energy at the season premiere and then carry that energy into the mid-season finale. The second half of the season is supposed to be a mad dash to the season finale, and the season finale is supposed to keep you talking about the show all summer long. We are not at that point with season eight. The only positive is we have no clue how the season finale is going to end.
